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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Please, Beyoncé, Let Us Help You!

Dear Beyoncé,

First, let
me start off by saying that I like you. I like your music. I even still have
some old Destiny’s Child CDs, somewhere. When you combine my enjoyment of you
and Ant’s enjoyment of Lady Gaga, well, you can imagine the squeals of delight,
the car dancing, the singing along (at the top of our lungs) that occurs when “Telephone”
comes on the radio.

The way you
announced that you and Jay-Z were having a baby? THAT was awesome. “Oh, did the
paparazzi want to speculate about my baby bump? I’ve got your baby bump. Right.
Here. Jerkfaces!”

Lately, I’ve
heard some very disturbing tidbits about the birth of your daughter. There’s
nothing wrong with her, but there may be something wrong with the way you are approaching
this whole mothering thing, however.

Now, don’t get
me wrong—I am SO not into the judgey mother slap fight thing. I’m just not. So
this is not an accusation of anything. I just want to give you some pointers. I
want to help! I can’t imagine that you want to come across as a Competimom—or
worse, so please let me clue you in on some things:

I see so many places that will be stained by blood, expressed milk, spit up, poop- photo from TMZ

First, it’s
not cool to take over the labor and delivery unit. Ask any group of mothers,
and you’ll invariably hear horror stories of the L&D ‘princesses’. Now that
I’ve seen the pictures of your birthing suite, I think the other moms might
turn on you. I understand that you didn’t want paparazzi flashing pictures of you
in those horrible mesh hospital undergarments. I don’t know anyone who wants to
see any picture that might involve a lactation consultant giving you pointed advice
on cracked nipples. But ruling the whole L&D unit, including the NICU—not cool!

I’m not
saying that you should’ve gone the creepy, “my drug kingpin baby daddy set up
an entire surgical suite for the birth of our child in a back room of our house”
Nancy Botwin way. It’s just not appropriate to throw your birthing experience
in the faces or lives of others. Plus, none of that stuff really matters, you
know? You could give birth in the ocean massaged into hypnotic relaxation by
giant sea turtles while cormorants sang angelic hymns to you overhead, and the
outcome is going to be pretty much the same. Baby is born. That’s all that
really matters.

Second, Jay-Z
including your daughter on a new single just seconds after she was born? That
part is probably okay. Some people even think it’s cute. I’m sure he’s very
much feeling the role of proud papa right now, and that’s fine. What would not
be fine is for you to compare (even in your mind!) your child’s ‘accomplishments’
to others. I don’t even want you to think the words, “My baby was in the liner
notes before she was even a day old. What can your newborn do?” Comparing your
baby to others’ babies is not cool. Judging other moms or the things they do
for their children is also not cool, just so you know. All babies are special—your
baby is perfect, and every other baby is perfect, just the way they are. Babies
do what they do at the time they want to do it, and that’s the way it’s
supposed to be. Since you are in the limelight—please set a good example for
all of us to follow!

Last, the
name issue. I am not a fan of the name. It doesn’t matter what I think, though.
There are always going to be people who disagree with the name, whether you are
Beyoncé or not, whether you name your child Blue Ivy or Emma or T-Rex or La-a
(where the dash is pronounced). That’s just the way it goes. There’s an
adjustment period. The good news is that you found a name that both you Jay-Z
could agree upon! I know J and I had some crazy arguments over names (he spent
a week wanting to name our second child Vincent, I kept thinking of morticians
every time I heard it).

Could you—in
the meantime—just give us a nickname to go with? If you haven’t thought of a
more conventional nickname, could you think one up quickly? We’d all appreciate
it. I bet your daughter would too. She could use it for learning to spell her name
in kindergarten. I appreciate the drive to come up with the unique name, but no
child wants to learn to spell their first name and a primary color in one fell
swoop. And you might want to go ahead and research the court filing fee for a
legal name change. Squirrel that money away. You could give it her on her 18th
birthday. Just to be safe.

Otherwise, I
think you’ll be fine. I’m sure you love your child very much. I’m sure the both
of you are so very excited to embarking on this journey. There will be ups and downs.
That’s normal. What makes it worthwhile is watching that little person grow.
The icing on the cake can be the deep bonds you make with other moms along the
way. You can certainly have these relationships with some really awesome women,
as long as we nip these Competimom urges in the bud, okay?